


Dirty Laundry

by feeding_geese



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feeding_geese/pseuds/feeding_geese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Thom has never met a girl quite like Delly Cartwright. She's generous and kind, but she's a hell of a lot more under the surface. He just wishes that she came with some sort of instruction manual...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dirty Laundry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FortuneFaded2012](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneFaded2012/gifts).



> I hope you like this, FortuneFaded! I wrote it with my own head canon in mind, where both Delly and Thom have no plans to ever marry anyone and find love to be a complication to a good time. Thanks to my beta princess starkist and sweet, sweet Maltease.

There is no girl I am more compatible with between the sheets than Delphinium Cartwright. You wouldn't think that was so, given that the top of her head barely reaches my collarbone, but we've always been a good match. I don't mind being on the bottom. We both like it a little rough. We're both biters. Growing up by the slag heap, we were both pretty skilled with our mouths and our hands, like all kids who don't want to risk kids of their own. But when she came back to Twelve, she had pills from the Capitol, preventatives that none of us had ever heard of before. And she could've tried them out a number of times before she got home, but she waited. 

"You're my best friend," she smiled when she told me her decision. "I want it to be you."

"I thought Peeta was your best friend," I teased. 

"Peeta's my brother!" she squeaked, punching my arm for killing the mood. 

It was nice. Incredibly nice. And even though we were both new to it we fell in sync pretty quickly. Pills are getting more common in the district, but I'm not sure I could picture myself doing it with someone other than Delly, someone I didn't trust as wholeheartedly as I trust her. 

We've had other partners since, but nothing more than what we did before the district blew. Delly's the only woman I've been this close to, physically or otherwise. I wouldn't mind if she did it with someone else, we aren't married and never will be. When I asked her about it, she shook her head and shrugged. "I like doing it with you," she yawned, tucking herself under my arm. "You already know what I like."

Sleeping's easy, too. After I started in the mines, we'd sometimes spend summer nights in the meadow, when it was too hot to be wedged between Laurel and Everett at home. Five siblings means that I've always been accustomed to hanging on to someone when I sleep and Delly, who's never had to share a bed with anybody, doesn't mind my arm or leg around her. 

Delly and I do well in beds. 

Out of bed we get along like a house on fire. We're smart and affable. We have a lot in common for two people who grew up so differently. We do a decent job of knowing what the other one is thinking. Most of the time. Some of the times I just don't get her. This week, for example. 

Monday wasn't so bad. The snow had started the night before. Most mornings I'm up with the sun checking snares before heading home to help my mama with the kids. But it was pretty clear by dawn that the district was snowed in. Snow storms aren't a rarity in Twelve, what is rare is the luxury of thumbing your nose at your job and staying in bed. 

"Sun'll melt it down some," she mumbled into her pillow. "I'm not even putting on clothes."

And that suited me fine. With her brother off in Thirteen visiting his sweetheart, Delly didn't bother with anything more than a sheet the entire day. I pulled on my drawers and passed on the shower, still marvelling at the frequency with which I can bathe now. We scraped together a meal from odds and ends and I built up the fire in the sitting room. Soon after we finished eating she bustled out and into the room with a large box.

"What's all that?" I asked as she laid out bunches of sinew strips. 

"Snowshoes." She took a book out of the box and turned to a dog-eared page, pointing to an illustration of the weirdest pair of shoes I'd ever seen. "I heard about them before. They're meant to walk on top of snow so you don't sink."

"Would've been helpful in the Seam," I sighed, remembering the long trudges to the mines when the snow would seep into my thin boots. 

"Uh-huh," she nodded. "But they're expensive. Or they were, before we had more animal bits to use. So the only people who could've afforded them were Peacekeepers, and they only stuck to where the roads were shoveled."

"They'd come in handy in the woods," I mused. 

"That's why I'm practicing. I got this book sent from Seven. Loggers use them a lot, I guess."

"Think you could make me a pair?"

"This is your pair," her smile shifted from sweet to wicked. "You're gonna be my test subject."

I was going to see to some repairs around the house, but I wound up propped up on my elbow watching Delly weave sinew in an intricate pattern along the wooden hoop until I fell asleep. When I woke up she had set aside her work and curled up next to me, her sheet draped over us both. 

Monday was good.

Tuesday came and she was put out that the snow not only lingered, but multiplied. 

"I'm going to run out of clean clothes at this rate," she huffed. "I bet Mrs. Lansing can't even open her door!"

"You don't need the washer woman," I argued lazily from my warm spot under the sheets. "Just do a load yourself." She sat down on the mattress hard. 

"Capitol's got machines that do the washing for you." The implication rubbed me wrong. Like the Capitol was so much better than Twelve because they had machines that did your labor. I even hated installing Capitol heating into new houses. Maybe it's because I'd always been told by higher ups that I'd always be Seam trash no matter what. I like reminding people that Seam trash won the war. 

"Good for the Capitol," I sighed, rolling my back to her. I'd never thought her spoiled before, but I'd never known a girl to grouse over washing, either. She huffed again and made her way to the bathroom. 

After an hour of the shower running, I couldn't take it any longer. 

"You're gonna use all the hot water, Dell," I called into the room dripping with steam. 

"Then jump in with me," she smiled. I was happy that she wasn't sour about the laundry anymore, but mostly I was reminded that I'm twenty and there was a naked girl in the shower. Sure enough, she started kissing me the moment I pulled the curtain closed. Then I had to go and ruin it. 

"Seriously. If you want to soak you should take a bath. We're still not 100 percent on our water supply."

I have never seen lust disappear so quick. The curtain yanked open and she was out before I could pull her back in. 

"I'm done," she threw over her shoulder. "Finish up by yourself." The ice in her voice was like a snowball to the face, but she went for the physical assault too, flushing the toilet on her way out, freezing the water that pelted the front of me. 

Experience with my sister Laurel has taught me that sometimes women need a wide berth, especially when you have no idea what's getting to them. So I stood in the corner of the tub until the water heated up again and took my time lathering up with that sweet lemon soap she uses. Mama has always made our soap with sweet bubbies that grow near the fence, though she found some spicy-smelling cloves in a relief drop from the Capitol once and has made a bar or two with that before. I don't care if I smell like lemon or camphor or clove as long as I don't smell like coal. 

By the time I toweled off she was nowhere to be found on the second floor. The first floor seemed vacant, too, until I heard the angry whirr of her sewing machine behind her workroom door. A clear message that she had gone to her corner and I was to go to mine. 

I had a mind to call Laurel or even Peeta and ask for a helpful word, but the already shoddy lines had been knocked down in the storm. Top notch Capitol construction, I huffed, still pissed at Delly's fawning over their stupid washing machines. If the Capitol was so damn great she should've just stayed there. But she came back to dusty old Twelve because deep down she knows that Twelve--that I'm--better than the Capitol. 

Then again, she could've come home for Peeta. She'd go anywhere Peeta went. 

But what'd she say? Peeta was her brother. I was her best friend. That had to count for something. I'd never really had a best friend before Delly and Thirteen had driven some really confusing feelings to the surface that I was not prepared to deal with. For some reason, the thought of Delly favoring the Capitol for anything made me uncomfortably territorial about her. 

I turned the morning over and over while I fried up a few eggs until I could practically hear Laurel laughing at me ten houses down. "Why are you even trying, Thompson? Just give her space and she'll forgive you for being an ass." Except I wasn't being an ass. There was no reason she couldn't wash out her own clothes and we were lucky the pipes hadn't frozen, so saving water was a must. Delly's a sensible girl who was made crazy by a few feet of snow. I argued with my sister in my head until my eggs went cold on the plate. 

After an unsatisfying breakfast and wash up, the machine behind the door was still running at full speed. I wasn't in the mood to have my head bit off for being reasonable so I busied myself elsewhere. There was a handful of little repairs I'd been meaning to do around her house anyways. 

I patched a handful of drafts in the attic and cursed the snow that continued to drift past the window. If it didn't stop by tonight, I envisioned tying the sheets together and climbing out the bedroom window. I could run two houses down and get some more provisions from Katniss and Peeta. Running the bakery from Katniss' house means they've always got an abundance of flour and I knew Katniss started smoking meat when the leaves started turning. They were probably eating like Peacekeepers if they weren't screwing or having mental breakdowns. At least Delly's easier to deal with than Katniss. 

After fixing the drip in the kitchen sink, I had an abundance of nothing to do. I stopped every time I heard a pause in the sewing machine, but minutes later it would growl to life again. 

I pulled up a seat at the kitchen table and one of Peeta's sketch pads that are always laying around her house. After the thaw we're going to finally start pulling the town square together, birth something new out of the ash, and I want to bring the Hob back. Not as a secret space, instead I see an open market allowing people who work out of their homes, people like Delly, a place to sell. There'll be a building for the cold months, but it'll be a place to be proud of, not a place to sneak off to. 

I made decent progress, not stopping to eat a full meal but gnawing on a hard heel of bread while I worked. The door of the workroom remained closed even when the machine stopped for the evening. I had a mind to make peace. Unfortunately, I fell asleep at the table, pencil in hand. When I awoke at three in the morning, the workroom was open and empty. I dragged myself up the stairs to the guest room, that space she allotted for me that I've never used because I've always been in her bed. Once I reached the second floor, however, I found her door opened wide, and inside my side of the sheets drawn back. An invitation. Or maybe just an expectation. Either way I pulled off my clothes and slid in behind her. Whether she was awake or not, she let me curl around her little body. 

I only hoped she wouldn't throw me out in the morning. 

Dawn has come and gone. It's Wednesday. And still snowing. I'm going to try climbing out the window today, but I'm going to need some clothes to do it. I've worn the same set of drawers for a few days now, and I'm not going to go asking for food in trousers caked in construction grime. If I build the fire up hot enough, they should dry in a few hours tops. While I'm at it I can save myself another day talking to the walls and wash Delly's clothes too. She's still out, curled in a ball looking peaceful as a kid after the Harvest Festival. 

I've got an armload of clothes before I hear the bed sheets stir.

"What are you doing?" There's an edge to her voice I already don't like. 

"Laundry," I sigh. 

"Don't bother with mine," she draws her knees up to her chest defensively. "I made two dresses yesterday."

"So that's your solution? You're going to make clothes until the snow melts?" I really shouldn't, but the laugh comes out before I can swallow it. "Stop putting on airs and get your hands dirty before you're wearing the drapes! What did they do to you in the Capitol, anyway?"

"It's got nothing to do with the Capitol and you know it!" She bites back. "You're just ornery because you're shacking up with a Merch girl and Merch girls don't work like Seam girls! Merch girls lie on their backs and let their husbands buy them fresh meat! Merch girls waste their time on gossip and long showers and they all got what was coming to them!" 

She's screaming now. I can't make sense of a thing she's saying, just a tumble of words with "Merch" and "Seam" thrown in. Finally, I can't take it anymore. 

"Delphinium, what the hell are you talking about?!"

"You think I'm not used to it? Being called spoiled? Privileged? I like long showers because I grew up getting as much time for a lather and a rinse and nine times out of ten it was ice cold! But Merchant girls can't go without a daily scrub. It's bad for business. People talk if you're not glistening so you use that course bristle brush and scrub your skin raw so maybe they'll like you and pay a little extra for new reaping shoes instead of hand-me-downs. And with that little extra you pay to send your laundry out because there's always someone who needs that money more than you, and I'm glad we did it but I'm sorry, Thompson! I'm sorry I'm a spoiled Merch girl who doesn't know how to do laundry because sending it out meant that the Hawthornes ate!"

I can feel the bundle dropping out of my hands. I'd been so preoccupied with the Capitol that I didn't even think that there might've been other reasons for her behavior. Reasons connected to home, to that divide between Seam and Town that we pretended didn't exist when we were fooling around in the meadow as kids. 

"I didn't know..."

"Well now you know," she sniffs, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. The rage is gone from her face, now the redness comes from trying to hold back tears. "I've heard it. Not to my face, but I hear some say it." The next part is so quiet I struggle to hear. "Merchants got what was coming to them. They had it so good for so long. Thought kissing the Capitol's ass would save them and now...now they're just ash mixed in with the coal dust."

I'm on the bed with her up in my lap before the first tear hits the sheet and my skin soaks up all the rest. There's never been a huge love between Seam and Town, but now that so little of either remains, I'd hoped we'd moved past that. I'd hoped that Thirteen and the war and everything had made people see how stupid, how Capitol-enforced, that phony divide had been. I can't believe anyone in my district would have the gall to say something so horrible, when practically everyone in Twelve has lost someone or something. I'm so angry that my fingers are digging into her skin. I want names. I want to go door to door and beat the crap out of anyone who hurt my best friend. But while deeply satisfying, it's not going to help right now. So I hold her and rock her and think about what to say. 

"Delly?" I whisper at last. "Why did you wait to come home to have sex?"

She pulls back, her face twisted in a fight between anger and confusion. 

"What?" I continue, hoping I'm on the right track. 

"You were in the Capitol for months, then back in Thirteen for longer. Why did you wait? It could've been with anyone."

"No it couldn't!" The anger's winning. "It had to be with you!"

"Why?"

"Because you're my best friend, that's why!" she yells, trying to push herself away, but I hold on tighter. 

"I'm your what?" Her eyes narrow and her voice goes low. 

"I'm not so sure anymore."

"I'm your best friend." I push her bangs back and kiss her forehead. "And you're my best friend. Have been since we were stood up at the heap. Even when you thought Peeta was the only one who counted on you, who needed you, you were my best friend." Her eyes grow wide and her mouth slackens. I'm pretty sure she's catching on. Delly's quick like that. "Sure, I can be stupid about some things at times, but you gotta think better of me than to group me in with those idiots! And you gotta think better of yourself than to listen to them!" She heaves a hard, shuddering breath against me, resting her head on my shoulder as I rake my fingers through the tangle of wheat-colored curls. "I'm not the only one, you know. My sisters worship you. Laurel won't listen to me anymore, thank you very much." This gets a quiet laugh that sounds like water in a drought. "I'm fairly certain my whole family would trade me for you in a heartbeat!"

"That's not true," she whispers, a smile creeping slowly onto her face even as the tears continue to roll. 

"And Katniss, well she almost smiles at you!" This gets a laugh laced with sobs. I want to devour this sound, her laughter, even if there's an unbearable sadness beneath it. I take her face in my hands and wipe at her cheeks with my thumbs. "I can't promise it'll get better. But I can promise that I'll help. And I'll never gripe about your showers again."

"And you'll teach me how to do laundry?"

"Deal," I laugh. 

"Thank you." Her lips capture mine, but the heat doesn't travel to my groin like it usually does when she kisses me. Instead it settles into a hard lump in my chest. It's uncomfortable and thrilling at the same time and unfortunately it's not the first time I've felt it around her. It started just before the war, this heady rush of adrenaline that makes it hard to breathe and sometimes makes me nauseous. Normally I can push it down, but these feelings I've never wanted keep stirring up and I know at last that I'm going to have to deal with them. 

I am in love with Delly Cartwright.


End file.
